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Members of the Free Syrian Army based in the vicinity of Khirbet al Joze, near Jisr Al Shughour in north-western Syria, near the Turkish border, pledged to fight the Syrian regime until the complete liberation of Syria from Bashar al-Assad and his fascist thugs.

Under Bashar Assad, Syria was a second-rate Arab power. There was no “peace process” to lend it regional relevance; Assad soon lost Lebanon; and the Bush administration’s objectives in Iraq ran against those of Syria, so engagement became futile. Damascus could siphon jihadists into Iraq; it could, with Iran, turn Hamas against Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestine Liberation Organization; and it could cooperate with Hezbollah to reverse the shaky independence that Lebanon gained in 2005.